Richard D. Wolff
@profwolff
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Host of #EconomicUpdate , Prof. of Economics Emeritus @UMassAmherst , visiting Prof. @TheNewSchool , founder @democracyatwrk . #WeCanDoBetterThanCapitalism
New York, NY
Joined October 2009
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Wolff Responds: Antisemitism vs Antizionism, Biden, Gaza and Universities responses (May 8, 2024)
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Corona virus as an excuse?
Mutating viruses have always been with us. A rational economic system would have learned to plan and manage them.
Capitalism failed to learn because profit was/is its
#1
priority.
Capitalism caused today’s disaster, not the latest virus.
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When many shortages were reported in the old USSR, communism - the system - got blamed. Now that we suffer many shortages, everything other than the system - capitalism - gets blamed. Dont be fooled.
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Who is the more important trading partner: China (red) or USA (blue)? How drastically the world economy has changed. No wonder US and EU miscalculated how sanctions would "weaken" Russia. Thanks to Henry Hakamaki for the graphic.
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Trump did not bring fascism; it brought him. Fascism is capitalism's harsh, savage response to the divisive social crises it imposes on society (depressions, extreme racial and economic inequalities, etc.). 1/2
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Worst week of unemployment claims in US history was in 1982 @ 695,000 jobless.
For each of last 17 weeks, claims were over 1 million.
Yet still no gov't hiring program. Total failure.
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Capitalism crashes in 2008. 10 years later, millions have jobs at lower pay, there are more people with fewer benefits, and still more with less job security. Celebrate this disaster as a recovery? The system is the problem.
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What crashed in 2008 was global capitalism, not socialism. What took 10 yrs of lost jobs, homes, savings to “recover” was capitalism, not socialism. The systemic inequality that helped cause the 2008 crash and got worse across the last decade belongs to capitalism, not socialism.
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Ignore word salad debates over this recession. Here's what matters: we live in a system, capitalism, that is deeply unstable, lurching from inflation to recession & back endlessly disturbing our lives, jobs, institutions. End taboo against facing that our system is our problem
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Russia is one of world's largest exporters of oil and gas. If US, European sanctions and/or Russia's responses drive up oil and gas prices, Russia's export revenues will rise and help pay the sanctions' costs. In contrast rising oil and gas prices will feed US inflation.
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Leaders who saw no moral issues with invading and occupying (for 20+ years) Afghanistan and Iraq are now "morally outraged" by Putin's invasion of Ukraine? That's hypocrisy, not morality.
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Blaming the homeless is not only an example of "blaming the victim." It also lets the economic system off the hook for failing to (1) provide people with enough income to secure decent housing or (2) to make decent housing affordable or (3) both.
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Proof that the US election system is "rigged" is the fact that a Trump could be the GOP candidate and a Biden the Democratic candidate. Offering them as the "best" possible leaders our society can produce insults us all.
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Capitalism never solves the problem of slums; it just relocates them.
Capitalism never solves the problem of the poor; it just relocates them.
Capitalism cannot solve such social problems because it is the problem.
#HowCapitalismWorks
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Were Ukraine winning, it would not need to beg for more tanks, armored vehicles, etc. Its allies would not need to give them.
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"Reopen economy" = risk your life or lose your job. The choice capitalism offers.
Better plan: In a national emergency, gov't hires the 30 million jobless to make workplaces safe to reopen. Hires can be funded by 100% tax on all personal wealth above $100 million.
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There is no "labor shortage." There is a shortage of good jobs, good pay, good job conditions. When workers refuse bad jobs, bad pay and poor job conditions, employers whine "labor shortage." Don't be fooled.
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"Learning to live with Covid" is US capitalism's surrender slogan. The system failed to prepare for or cope with Covid's threat to public health. Dont waste time blaming this or that person or group trapped in the system. The system is the problem.
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What Zelensky says: Ukrainians will never forgive Russians for this war. What Zelensky fears: Ukrainians will never forgive him for this war too. In war and politics, the transition from hero to villain can happen quickly.
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Rising wages do not "force" higher prices. Employers raise prices if,when it profits them; they always blame others. Don't be fooled.
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In capitalism, employees do the work, get wages, salaries. Employers provide tools, equipment, raw materials, etc., get profits. But what employers provide was made by other employees.
Capitalists are costly, unnecessary middlemen inserted between groups of real workers.
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NPR and most US media say only Fed Reserve interest rate hikes can end inflation. False. Nixon did it with a price-wage freeze. FDR prevented it by his early 1940s rationing. Media, gov't serve the 1% at the expense of the 99%.
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A declining capitalism makes Americans desperate.
Half go for an old huckster's promised return to "greatness."
Half go for an old establishment politico's promised return to pre-Trump "normalcy."
Meanwhile, underneath their mutual blame politics, the system's decline continues.
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So now we know why Germany reversed its position on Ukraine and bowed to the US. Doing so bought US support for massively re-arming Germany. Military-industrial complexes everywhere cheer.
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It's NOT pro- vs anti-vaccine. The issue is class struggle: have employers' dictates/mandates become intolerable for employees? Record job-quitting + strikes + refusals of mask/vaccine mandates say yes.
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With Democrats like Manchin, Sinema, and "no more student loan relief" Biden, who needs Republicans?
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As strikes get more frequent, larger, longer and as employers call in gov't they own, general strike is workers' best response.
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Employers, journalists, and politicians speak about "a labor shortage" these days. Dont be fooled. The "shortage" only exists at the low wages they offer. Offer higher wages and "shortages" vanish. Employers yell "shortage" hoping gov't will help them get more cheap labor.
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Biden is no FDR. Not even close. FDR's top corporate profit rate was 40%. GOP+Dems later cut it to 35%; Trump cut it to 21% in 2017. FDR's top personal income tax rate began at 63% (1933), rose to 94% (1944). GOP+Dems cut it to 37%. Biden's proposals are nothing like FDR's.
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Cuba is first Latin American country to develop, test its own Covid-19 vaccine.
Cuba's globally praised medical services successfully prepared for and contained Covid-19.
And that despite US embargo and hostility.
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People once thought slavery was “part of human nature” and would last forever. They once thought the same about feudalism and monarchy. Imagine: some people today think that about capitalism.
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US "enemies" now are chiefly Russia and China - just like 50 years ago. Yet Russia after 1989 embraced capitalism and China's economy includes more private capitalist enterprises than ever. Capitalism vs socialism is not and never was the real issue.
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Musk (Twitter), Zuckerberg (Metaverse), Bezos (Washington Post): huge wealth buys huge power. But only Russia has "oligarchs."
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Rightists say “no income if able-bodied don’t work.” But in capitalism, big incomes (rent, dividends, capital gains, interest) go to owners who need not and often do not work. Extreme hypocrisy of rightist ideology.
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Invasion + war devastated Ukraine for 20 days and continue. Invasion + war devastated Afghanistan for 20 years and now sanctions, mass poverty, starvation make it worse. Biden calls only Ukraine "genocide," ignores Afghanistan. That is hypocrisy, not morality.
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The propaganda playbook's 2 rules. When you invade (Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.) the rule for the damage you do is HIDE IT. When your adversary invades (Ukraine, etc.) the rule for the damage is HYPE IT.
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Hillary Clinton focused blame on Russia as the external enemy. Trump chose China instead. Biden blames them both.
Blame games serve to distract us from a declining US capitalism, its problems and tensions. Blaming others is now a truly bi-partisan effort.
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Real lockdowns (that really stop Covid) cost employers profits. Vaccines (that gov't pays for) dont + vaccine firms profit big. So we had to wait for vaccines, w/ no real lockdowns like other nations had.
US employer class "managed" the pandemic to serve its interests, not ours.
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Conservatives claim that a higher federal minimum wage ($7.25/hour since 2009) will destroy many businesses. Really? So US capitalism depends partly on paying many workers starvation wages. Not exactly a plus for capitalism.
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Anger, bitterness, rebellion: the middle class & poor rightly protest joblessness, inequality, poverty but aim at wrong targets. Some vote Brexit, some vote Trump, some protest lockdowns, mandated masks, vaccines. Those reactions solve little. System change is what we need.
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Slavery vs capitalism: in slavery the boss owns you all the time, but in capitalism only for 8 hours/day, 40 per week. Real freedom only arrives when no boss owns us any time, when workers cooperatively run their businesses.
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My latest book, "The Sickness is the System: When Capitalism Fails to Save Us from Pandemics or Itself" is a unique collection of over 50 essays which argue we cannot "return to normal" but must transition to a new economic system that works for all.
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"Labor shortage" is what employers and their flunkies say instead of admitting that they offer too low wages and too poor job conditions.
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Masters needed slaves to believe society needed masters.
Feudal lords needed serfs to believe they needed lords.
Capitalist employers need employees to believe they need bosses.
Don't be fooled.
#HowCapitalismWorks
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Miami's collapsed condo shows: privatized housing violates democracy. Only condo owners voted to defer building repair. Delivery workers, condo visitors, repairers knew nothing, didn't vote, risked injury, death. As irreducibly social, housing must be run democratically by all.
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July 4, 1776: US declares independence from Great Britain, an unjust, oppressive monarchy.
July 4, 2018: Americans think increasingly about declaring independence from capitalism, an unjust, oppressive economic system.
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Ventilators save Corona victims' lives but aren't being produced by firms b/c they cant sell enough to be profitable. US hospitals, buyers of ventilators & already unprofitable, won't order them. For profits, life itself is sacrificed.
#HowCapitalismWorks
.
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In capitalism "haves" rip off "have nots." When revolution threatens, "haves" fund a temp middle class, the "think they haves." Once rev threats pass, funding stops for "think they haves." They sink back into "have nots." To grasp this pattern is to bring capitalism's end nearer.
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1) W/ Bernie's millions of votes especially the young, US socialism is stronger than at any time since 1948.
2) W/ mismanagement of the coronavirus, global oil market manipulation, plunging stock markets, looming recession, capitalism is at its weakest since 1930s.
Remarkable.
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The basic fact of US politics: the establishment enabled, allowed Trump and an extreme right-wing to take the GOP and the presidency, while it systematically blocked, undercut Bernie's parallel effort with the Dems and a moderate left-wing.
Know your enemy.
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Right-wingers say socialism killed millions (USSR, China, etc.).
What? In last 300 years capitalist colonialism (Asia, Africa, Latin America, etc.), countless wars (+ 2 world wars) killed millions.
Social violence is a serious issue perverted by right-wingers.
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Only a declining, self-deluding capitalism lets a millionaire Senator (from the declining coal business in one of the nation's poorest states) block federal support to at least slow the decline. How empires self-destruct.
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Elections in capitalist countries always risk that the majority - employees - will vote to end the income and wealth inequalities produced by capitalism.
So capitalists buy parties, politicians, mass media.
It's their self-defense against real democracy.
#HowCapitalismWorks
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Masters always said slaves "needed" masters to plan, control, run their economies. Lords told same to serfs. Eventually, slaves & serfs revolted; turns out they never needed masters or lords. Now, when employees hear we "need" CEO's and executives, we just smile. Don't be fooled
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Every pre-capitalist system (slavery, feudalism, etc.) was born, evolved and died. Capitalism too was born and evolved. So the next phase is dying. Is that next now?
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The Dems fail to shut down white supremacy, or protect women's abortion access, or stop global warming, or reverse gross income and wealth inequalities, or stop inflation, etc. Just endless excuses. How long till we see a party to change all this?
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US media run "human interest" stories of desperate Afghan employees of the US occupation - whose plight is real. Yet for that occupation's 20yrs US media rarely if ever covered the many desperate Afghan people suffering US bombs, drones, troops. Is that what makes a "free press"?
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Why do capitalists running railways, airlines, etc. say "safety is our
#1
priority"? Because it isn't. Profit is. Spending more on safety hurts profits. Tragedies like East Palestine, Ohio, make us ask: why let profit-driven capitalists be in charge? That's what's unsafe.
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Who is militaristic? Who alone maintains many military bases around the world? Who fights wars around the world? Who spends the most?
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Against Ocasio-Cortez's and Warren's plans to raise taxes on the rich, Clinton-Obama-type Dems plead that those plans endanger Dems' votes.
Yet when FDR's Dems taxed the rich, it got him re-elected more than any other president.
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In capitalism, if workers push wages up, employers move to lower wage areas or replace workers with machines. Its low wages or no wages. Capitalism is
hardly a system for workers.
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As fascism's tool, Trump and the far-right took over the mostly opportunistic GOP. But they all failed to protect Trump from anti-fascist blowback this time. Capitalism will likely confront us with fascism again. Unless system change intervenes. 2/2
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Macron tries again to shift costs of declining capitalism onto working class. Yellow vests defeated fuel taxes. Now a general strike contests his pension-cutting "reforms." In this class war, Macron is losing to united working class. Angry working classes elsewhere are watching.
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Rightists blame Venezuelan economic crisis on socialism. What abt Argentina? Pres Macri elected 2015 promised to save country from socialism. Last yr unemployment rose to 9.1%, GDP fell 6.2%, interest rate hit 65%/year, inflation rate now 55%. Bad crisis, no socialism.
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After the last 40 years of redistributing wealth from middle and poor to the top 1%, they now denounce as "wealth redistribution" when people want to redistribute in the opposite direction.
The richest 1% only want one-way redistribution.
#HowCapitalismWorks
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Exxon teaches us a lesson yet again: massive, dangerous methane gas leak at Exxon Mobil facility goes unreported until European gov't scientists detect and expose it.
And we trust profit-driven capitalists? Because they tell us we should?
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In World War 1 leading leftists rejected both sides. Eugene Victor Debs (US) and Vladimir Lenin (Russia) urged their respective working classes not to support or fight and die in what they called a capitalist war.
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Best way to solve debt ceiling furor is to not raise it. Instead raise income taxes on the super rich and mega-corporations, levy a 1% property tax on stocks and bonds (10% richest own 80%), and impose social security tax on incomes over $160k/year...
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History's lesson: when a society's majority loses any way to obtain solutions for its deepening problems while a rich minority enriches itself by buying the gov't, the bonds holding that society together dissolve. The US left must face that reality.
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US capitalism crashed in 2000 (dot com crash), again in 2008/9 (sub-prime mortgage crash), now again in 2020 (Corona crash).
Fact: capitalism has always been way too unstable. Ending each "business cycle" a different trigger sets off a crash.
We can do better than capitalism.
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The French police don blue vests demanding better wages and working conditions. Many police also say they want to join the yellow vests demanding the same for everyone. Macron' govt in crisis. Blue and yellow vests arm in arm. Capitalism imploding?
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"Many people opposed to socialism, communism and so on like to use what I call the 'count the deaths' argument... This time, I'm going to ask the question: what about capitalism?" Full video:
Oh good. A Marxist. In academia. 100 million plus corpses not enough for you, buddy?
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After capitalism crashed in 1929, fascists built mass support. After capitalism crashed in 2008, fascists are building mass support.
A pattern?
Capitalism is a dangerous economic system to accept.
#HowCapitalismWorks
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As US capitalism implodes, big parties deflect attention overseas.
Dems demonize Russia;
GOP demonizes Muslims;
they both compete to demonize China.
Pathetic priorities.
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Libertarians blame gov't for social ills. But that explains nothing. It only raises a question: why do gov'ts do this & not that?
By ignoring that question, libertarians become apologists for capitalism. They erase capital's dominant roll in shaping what gov'ts do and dont do.
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Employers plan to recoup lost profits by "cutting costs" (fewer hires, poorer work conditions, reduced benefits). Workers refused those changed jobs so employers invented "labor shortage" & politicians forced workers back by ending their Covid unemployment supplements. Class war.
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Slavery worked best for masters. Feudalism worked best for lords. Capitalism works best for employers.
With a transition to worker-coops, we finally get an economic system that works best for a majority.
#CureForCapitalism
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How capitalism survives.
(1) Divide the wealth we all produce so the richest 5% get half, the middle 25% get a third, and the 70% majority get a sixth.
(2) Repeat to the middle that socialism means the bottom wants to take what’s yours.
#HowCapitalismWorks
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For profit, employers pay low wages, charge high prices. With low wages we can’t afford much, so banks profit by loans (for mortgages, car loans, credit cards, college debt) to let us “afford” more. Then, we get to pay interest.
Isn’t capitalism wonderful?
#HowCapitalismWorks
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French mass street actions – the “yellow jackets” - in one week forced gov’t to cut fuel tax.
Now demands for more social changes. Big majorities polled are pro-mass actions.
Capitalism provokes its own undoing.
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US capitalism: fails to cope with Covid, fails to prevent economic crash, and now hits working class with a 7% inflation more than canceling a 5% wage increase. How long till its victims and critics ally to do better than capitalism?
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To honor Juneteenth, 2 facts:
1) US capitalism profited from slavery before Civil War ended it.
2) US capitalism profited from and reproduced racism directed against African-Americans ever since.
History suggests that getting beyond capitalism will help us get beyond racism.
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Learn from history or repeat it. Germany's capitalists drove it into WW1, 1914-'18; inflation, '23; Depression '29. Savaged its working class, enabled Hitler's fascism. Capitalists hit US working class: global wars, inflation, soon a recession. Descent of capitalism into fascism?
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Inflation in US, not in China. So the world (Americans too) buys more from China, less from US. So US working class now suffers BOTH inflation + job loss after 2 years of Covid + bad economy. Yet the 1% get still richer. System fail!
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For Labor Day 2021 a good message to frustrated activists from a great organizer of the past: "For decades nothing seems to happen, and then, in a few weeks, decades happen." How societies often change.
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Masters insisted that slavery would last forever. It didn't. Lords insisted that feudalism would last forever, and kings insisted the same about monarchy. Neither did.
Employers act like capitalism will last forever. Don't be fooled.
#CureForCapitalism
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Almost all of Europe has ended the death penalty and gives universal health care. The US does neither. Europe has far lower crime rates and rates of incarceration than US. "Family values"?
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Capitalism (1) promises technological progress to eliminate exhausting work, yet workers remain emotionally and physically exhausted, and (2) promises to out-perform all other systems in providing food, clothing, shelter, healthcare & education yet fails to do so for millions...
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Old folks still make capitalism vs socialism about private vs state enterprises.
Many socialists now want no employer vs employee system, private or state. They want worker coops instead, to be their own bosses: democracy at work.
#CureForCapitalism
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Before US had unemployment insurance, employers fought it saying "workers won't return to jobs if they get jobless pay."
Employers say same today: Covid-era jobless insurance causes "labor shortage."
False: employers just want to force workers to take low pay and bad jobs.
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Jeffrey Epstein suicide: how extraordinarily convenient for Trump, Clinton, Wexner and all those other "important people" involved in Epstein's financial and/or sexual "activities." Perhaps the Godfather films need and now have a sequel.
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Starbucks pays 350k employees an average $12/hour. It soaks millions for pricey coffee, etc. Such capitalist "success" makes it a $137 billion corp, Board Chair Shultz's $5.8 billion personal wealth. Obscenely enriches so few at the expense of so many.
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Where are the US “yellow vests” to protest gov’t shutdown and the wall? Millions would sympathize, mobilize. The movement could grow, win demands, and expand just as in France.
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Focusing on a possible Wuhan lab accident (or its possible "cover up") is how Trump and now Biden distract attention from what killed and sickened so many Americans: US failure to prepare for or cope with Covid as so many other nations did.
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They got it all wrong in Afghanistan for the last 20 years: US generals; US diplomats there (including CIA); US leaders (GOP + Dems, Presidents included); nations following US lead. When so many get it so wrong for so long, deep system failure is exposed.
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US capitalism survives only because US Treasury borrows $ trillions while Fed drops interest rates near zero. So US gov't interest payments stay low while spending $ trillions on arms, programs, etc. US capitalism on gov't life support. That's the reality
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The Ukraine crisis proves that past sanctions against Russia achieved nothing. And today's Taiwan crisis shows that Trump's and Biden's tariffs and trade wars against China achieved nothing either. Maybe threats of more sanctions are mostly about impressing US voters.
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How capitalism works: Walton family (of Walmart) and Bezos (of Amazon) are the richest because Walmart and Amazon workers are among worst paid with fewest benefits and least job security.
#HowCapitalismWorks
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Capitalism is undemocratic.
A minority (owners, execs) decides what, how, where firm will produce, how it uses profits.
A majority (employees) is excluded from making firm decisions that impact it deeply.
It's the opposite of democracy.
#WeCanDoBetterThanCapitalism
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Progressives set aside huge differences w/ Biden (over Dem leaders' abuse of Sanders' campaigns, moves to marginalize progressive voices, ...). Biden would not have won w/out progressives' efforts, votes. Dont let Biden's regime forget that crucial support or take it for granted.
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Biden said "Our country is taking everything that COVID has to throw at us, and we’ve come back stronger." Covid cut 9.5 million jobs in 2020, hired back only 6.6 million in 2021. That is not "stronger." 1/2
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